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From the Emerging Leaders Forum: A Look into the Future of Neurology

Close your eyes a moment and envision your practice in 2020. That's the year by which the Congressional Budget Office predicts that overall Medicare and Medicaid spending will be reduced by more than 200 billion dollars a year. It's also the year that the United States is expected to face a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians and 46,000 surgeons and medical specialists. By 2020, the projected number of patients with Parkinson's disease will have increased by 30 percent from 2010 figures to 390,000, and those with Alzheimer's disease will have increased 12 percent to 5.7 million — numbers, which are expected to continue to grow by 2030 to 530,000 and 7.7 million respectively. Even now, we could use 11 percent more neurologists to meet the nation's needs, and by 2025 that number will rise to 19 percent according to a recent neurology work force study.

A future saddled with such challenges calls for strong neurologist leaders capable of directing the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) through the next wave of health care delivery, and a new program has been created just for that purpose. The Emerging Leaders Forum (ELF), designed specifically to identify, orient, and cultivate talented, highly motivated individuals as future Academy leaders held its first training session in the fall of 2012. Several participants from the first class shared with Neurology Today their experiences from the last few months and their vision for what neurology practices will look like in 2020. Here's a look at of the first class of Emerging Leaders.*

HOW CAN NEUROLOGISTS IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY USING A RELATIVE VALUE UNIT (RVU)-BASED COMPENSATION MODEL? In April, Richard E. Popwell Jr., MD, chairman of the Bozeman Deaconess Health Group Executive Council in Bozeman, MT, traveled to Aurora, CO, to observe the quality measures and patient safety systems in place at the University of Colorado Hospital with his Emerging Leaders Forum mentor, Neurology Today Editor-in-Chief Steven P. Ringel, MD. Dr. Ringel is professor and director of the Neuromuscular Division at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora and vice president for clinical effectiveness and patient safety at University of Colorado Hospital. Watch here as Dr. Popwell discusses with Dr. Ringel the efforts at the nonprofit Bozeman Deaconess to help their physicians better “capture” and measure their work habits effectively to make best use of the relative value unit-based system for compensation: http://bit.ly/aNQ4KB. Link also to Neurology Today's past coverage of the RVU model, “IN PRACTICE: How Do You Get Paid? As RVU Methodologies Gain Favor, What You Should Know”: http://bit.ly/11FWR8X.